The understanding
of the concept of development has evolved over time, and currently, there is a
general consensus that the way forward to improve the capabilities and
opportunities of all people is Sustainable Human Development. This places the
person as the center and active subject of development, promoting a
sustainable, inclusive, and equitable economic growth, which generates more opportunities
for all, reduces inequalities, improves basic living conditions, fosters social
development, and promotes the integrated and sustainable management of natural
resources, being able to satisfy the needs of the present without compromising the
capability of future generations to satisfy their own needs.
Thereby, international development organizations should
take into account the unequal circumstances of more than 50% of the population,
women. Since women, throughout history, have suffered discrimination against
men through the assignment of specific roles, responsibilities and
opportunities, socially constructed based on biological differences between the
sexes.
The clearest evidence of this inequality has shown,
therefore, the need to implement processes oriented to eradicate it, seeking a
complete vision of reality that considers all the people who represent
different societies in the world. Proof of this is the United Nations Summit
for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda, in which the document
"Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"
was agreed by consensus. This document contains the 17 Sustainable Development
Goals (SDG) to be reached by 2030 and, specifically, includes a goal aimed to achieve
gender equality, the SDG5: “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and
girls.” Furthermore, in line with the 2030 Agenda's commitment to "leave
no one behind", meeting gender equality is fundamental to advance in the
achievement of all other objectives, which is reflected in paragraph 20 of this
document.
In this way, for development cooperation
organizations, working to promote equality and equity between women and men, in
the processes, has gone from being a necessity to being an imperative. Today, reaching
real gender equality is, finally, considered a necessary condition for
achieving a sustainable, peaceful and prosperous world. Therefore, how could we
work to foster sustainable human development and social equity without deeming the
inequalities faced by women compared to men, as well as the structures and
patriarchal system that sustain those inequalities?
In practice, a large part of development cooperation
projects still does not integrate the gender perspective in their planning,
showing themselves “blind” to gender inequalities. These projects drive their
actions to the "general population", without, even, distinguish
between men and women, ignoring the differences and inequalities in people's
capacities and opportunities, working from biased information and based on assumptions
that do not question the existing structures and may even generate a bigger inequality.
Many projects, which have tried to incorporate the
gender dimension, have been developed based on a well-known approach “Women in
Development” (WID). However, these projects still have limited effects in terms
of strengthening the position of women in their respective societies. Even
though it is important to recognize the role of women as agents of development
and to identify the different roles and needs that men and women play in their
communities, it is not enough if we aim to eradicate structural inequalities
that perpetuate them. Thus, many of
these projects have tried to improve the living conditions of women, but only
through specific activities focused on them. For instance, looking for increasing
their incomes through projects based on training in their traditional roles,
without any reflection on alternatives of other potentially more productive
sectors or on their capability to control the resources generated on these
sectors. Also, leaving aside the analysis of the role of men and, thus,
focusing all responsibilities for gender inequalities on women, turning out that
women are the only ones who have to change.
To cover these deficiencies, the so-called “Gender in
Development” (GAD) approach arises, which focuses its interventions, not on women,
but on unequal relationships and positions between women and men so that to
seek a structural transformation. Its main objective is to achieve equity
relationships between men and women through the strengthening of capabilities
and their autonomy. However, how this cross-cutting approach should be
integrated to result effectively in practice into the development cooperation
planning and work processes?
Firstly, it is necessary to start from gender inequalities
and needs analyses that show the reality of women and men's lives. This makes it
possible to contrast our preconceived ideas and serves as a baseline to analyze
a differentiated impact that our intervention may have on the living conditions
and the position of women and men in their respective societies. This analysis shall
be, above all, a sociocultural analysis adapted to the reality of inequalities
between women and men in each specific context focused on the “gender culture”
of each community in which it is intended to be deployed, and in which,
furthermore, the heterogeneity and diversity of women themselves are taken into
account.
In the same way, development projects and actions must
involve all sectors of the population to ensure their participation throughout
their life cycle. Thus, it is also important to include men, since promoting real
equality between women and men is not only a women's issue, and the achievement
of more equitable relationships will not be reached until the gender dimension
is addressed with men as responsible subjects and participants in this change.
For the effectiveness of the aforementioned aspects,
it is necessary to ensure that responsible persons for planning and
implementing cooperation projects have been trained in gender matters, through
the development, for example, of adequate and permanent training and awareness
programs. Promoting, in this way, the efficient definition and implementation
of innovative and sensitive methodologies and procedures to gender in
development actions and initiatives.
Finally, it is worth highlighting the importance of
ensuring the sustainability of the work carried out in terms of gender,
promoting the systematic collection of lessons learned and good practices from several
initiatives and projects implemented, so that, all lessons learned from
previous works can serve as a reference for future interventions. Thus, from
theory to practice, there seems to be a long way to go to prevent the
integration of the gender dimension from being further distorted or used as an
excuse for not moving towards real equality in development cooperation
projects.
For all these reasons, and beyond the cooperation
organizations, we must continue doing our part from different spheres of
society, so that, equality and equity between men and women become normal. It
is a matter of coherence, social justice, and human rights. We cannot forget
that the lives of more than half of the people of this, our planet, are at risk.
And you? How are you working
to support real gender equality?
By: Beatriz Iritia Urbano (Madrid, Spain)
Bachelor Degree in Sociology,
Master in Strategies and Technologies for Development,
Volunteer in the employment area of the Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR Madrid),
Technical analyst at the Africa Platform of the Technical
University of Madrid (UPM).
Bibliography
Die Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). (2015, November). La perspectiva de género en la cooperación internacional al desarrollo Conceptos básicos y buenas prácticas. Retrieved from https://www.giz.de/de/downloads/giz2015-es-La_perspectiva_de_genero_en_la_cooperacion_internacional_al_desarrollo.pdf
Elson, D. (2016). La igualdad de género y la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible. En M. Pajarín García & B. Leyra Fatou (Eds.), Cuadernos de género 4: Economía, Género y Desarrollo: Enfoques e iniciativas hacía la igualdad (pp. 15–20). Madrid, España: Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales. Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
United Nations. (2015). TRANSFORMING
OUR WORLD: THE 2030 AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/pga/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/08/120815_outcome-document-of-Summit-for-adoption-of-the-post-2015-development-agenda.pdf
United Nations. (n. d.). The Sustainable Development Agenda. Retrived
from https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/es/development-agenda/
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